Twilight Zone: The Victims
by Dean Fiora
Summary: Danny, 15, has been mercilessly bullied by three neighborhood boys - until a mysterious man puts an app on his phone that gives Danny complete power over his tormentors. But will the victim become the victimizer?


**THE VICTIM****S**

by Dean Fiora

"Hey, faggot!"

Danny froze up as the familiar sound of Tobin's voice rang behind him. He walked faster, but it did no good as his bullies picked up speed and overtook him.

The three boys surrounded Danny on the sidewalk, hands on hips. Tobin, their leader, pushed Danny's chest, causing him to stumble backward.

"Where ya goin', little girl?" Tobin taunted. "Don't you wanna hang out with your pals?"

The other two laughed as Tobin knocked Danny's schoolbooks out of his hands. As Danny bent down to pick them up, Tobin spit on the back of his coat.

Trevor, one of the other bullies, laughed. "Look at him! Christ, what a wimp."

Hunter, the third punk, mashed his foot into Danny's side, knocking him to the ground as his pals laughed it up.

Tobin said, "This shit's getting boring. Let's get outta here." To Danny, "See you later, faggot."

His eyes filled with tears and his mind burning with anger and resentment, Danny picked up his books and continued the walk home. Then he heard another voice.

"They just won't leave you alone, will they?"

The startled boy whirled around and saw a man of indeterminate age standing several feet away. He was about six feet tall and dressed in a dapper gray suit. An identically colored hat adorned his head.

"Are you talking to me, mister?"

"Yes, I am." He approached Danny, who backed away. "No, it's OK. I'm not here to hurt you. In fact, I'm here to help you."

"What do you mean?"

Now the man stood just a few feet from Danny. "May I see your phone?"

"Why?"

"I'd like to show you an app that can help with your problems."

"How do I know you won't steal it?"

The man smiled. "My suit cost a thousand dollars. Why would I steal your phone?"

Danny handed the man his phone. He pressed the screen several times and showed Danny an icon marked HELP! "The next time somebody picks on you, point the phone at them and open this app."

"Why? What'll happen?"

"The bullying will stop."

"How can a phone app do that?"

"Trust me, it can." In response to Danny's skeptical grimace, the man said, "Just try it. What have you got to lose?"

He handed the phone back to Danny, who shrugged and put it in his pocket.

"One thing, though: I've just given you tremendous power. How you use it is entirely up to you."

As the man walked away, Danny tapped on the app. Nothing happened. He tried several more times. Still nothing. He tried to delete the app but couldn't. The boy groaned worriedly and hoped the man hadn't put some damned virus on his phone.

xxxxx

The next morning, his phone seemed OK. Danny breathed a sigh of relief and left for the bus stop. Trevor was there alone.

As Danny approached, Trevor said, "Morning, faggot."

Danny ignored him.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!"

Danny said nothing.

Trevor rushed over and knocked Danny to the sidewalk. "When I talk to you, you answer me!"

Instead of feeling his usual fear, Danny experienced an onrush of anger. Instinctively, he pulled out his phone and aimed it at his tormentor.

Trevor laughed. "What the hell is that?"

Danny pressed the app marked HELP! A look of shock engulfed Trevor's face as he turned into a cloud of mist and disappeared into the phone.

Danny sat motionless, his mouth and eyes wide open. What just happened? He looked down at his phone. He was Trevor on-screen, a horrified look on his face. He balled up his fists and pounded on the inside of the screen. "What the hell, dude? Get me out of here!"

In a panic, Danny shut his phone off. Presently, his other two bullies from yesterday, Tobin and Hunter, got to the bus stop. They laughed when they saw Danny.

Tobin said, "Get up off the sidewalk, moron! What the hell's wrong with you?"

He stood up, unsteady on his feet. "Um, I tripped."

Hunter snorted. "Of course you did, because you're a retard."

Tobin looked around. "Where the hell's Trevor? He always beats us here."

Hunter shrugged. To Danny, "You seen him?"

"Uhh, no."

Tobin pulled his phone out and held it up to his ear. "Huh. Voicemail." A moment later, "Dude, we're at the bus stop. Where the hell are you?" He put the phone back in his pocket. "This isn't like Trevor. Something's not right."

"Dude, you're overreacting," said Hunter.

"I hope so," Tobin replied.

xxxxx

Danny couldn't concentrate at school. He was afraid to turn his phone on. And he certainly was afraid to surrender it when his teachers confiscated the students' phones at the beginning of each class. Danny was terrified that Trevor would suddenly reappear and tell everybody what Danny had done to him. But what _**had**_ he done? Danny still had no idea.

He left his phone off until after dinner. Alone in his bedroom, a nervous and sweating Danny turned the device back on. He brought up the app and saw Trevor onscreen.

"Come on Danny, this isn't funny! I don't know what you did, but you gotta let me outta here now!"

Feeling emboldened, Danny felt a smirk on his face. "Why should I? After all the crap you and your butt-buddies have put me through? You're exactly where you deserve to be."

"Dude, it was all in fun!"

"All in fun?" Danny felt the same anger he had experienced when Trevor had knocked him to the sidewalk that morning. "Pushing me down? Stepping on my head? Spitting on me? Calling me 'faggot' and 'retard?' All in fun, you son of a bitch?"

A taskbar appeared on the left side of the screen. Reflexively, Danny tapped an icon. Trevor screamed in agony, dropped to the floor, and convulsed violently until Danny tapped the icon a second time.

Trevor was sobbing now. "Hey, man, you're electrocuting me! I'm sorry, OK? I never really had a problem with you, Danny. It's just that, you know, Tobin and Hunter were always making fun of you. So I figured I should too."

"Oh, is that what you figured? Well, I figure I should see what these icons do!"

With each one he tapped, Trevor endured a new torture. One icon lifted him up high and let him drop to the floor with a nauseating splat. Another made a steel-toed boot appear just long enough to give Trevor a swift kick in the groin. A third icon produced a rawhide whip, which flayed the bully until the flesh had all but disappeared from his back. In all, there were twelve icons. And Danny was going to use each and every one on that son of a bitch.

By the time Danny finished, Trevor was a bleeding, quivering, half-naked mass on the floor. His heart racing, the blood pounding in his temples, his breathing heavy and labored, his body covered in sweat, and his face a mask of glee, Danny (again by instinct) swiped his index finger across the screen. Trevor immediately returned to his former state. He stood erect, the flesh had returned to his back, and his clothes had repaired themselves. The main difference was that Trevor's face was now a permanent mask of terror.

Danny said, "Well, that's enough for tonight. But guess what? There's always tomorrow."

Trevor's whimpering was the last thing Danny heard as he shut the phone down.

xxxxx

At the bus stop, Tobin and Hunter ignored Danny and talked between themselves.

"I don't get it. Where the hell could he be?"

"You know, his mom called the cops last night."

"Well, yeah! The dude's been missing for 24 hours. God, I hope some pervert didn't grab him."

Tobin noticed the cocky grin on Danny's face. "What the hell are you smiling at?"

"Oh, nothing."

"It better be nothing! Trevor's missing; that ain't nothing to smile about."

"Isn't it?" said Danny.

Tobin's mouth dropped open. "Do you know where Trevor is?"

"Wouldn't tell you if I did."

"I'll kill your ass!" Tobin lunged at Danny, who pulled out his phone and tapped on the HELP! app. Tobin turned into a cloud of mist and vanished into Danny's phone.

Before Hunter could react, Danny aimed the device at him too. Like Trevor and Tobin before him, Hunter turned to mist and was sucked into Danny's phone. Now all three of his bullies were at their victim's mercy.

xxxxx

He spent his lunch period at the far end of the football field, sitting against a goalpost and inflicting all manner of torture on those three bastards. Anyone who saw Danny's face might have thought he was playing a violent video game and enjoying it entirely too much. In a way, he was.

After dinner, Danny locked himself in his room and continued to get revenge on his bullies. He kept it up for so long, it was bedtime before Danny knew it. He hadn't even done his homework.

xxxxx

In English class the next day, Mrs. Ross collected the homework. When she got to Danny, she asked, "Where's yours?"

"Uh, I didn't do it."

"You didn't do your homework? That's not like you, Danny."

"Yeah. Well, I just didn't do it."

"You know the penalty—after school tomorrow."

"What? No!"

"Yes, Danny. After school tomorrow."

He seethed with fury through class. Afterward, he waited for the other kids to leave before he approached Mrs. Ross at her desk.

"What do you need, Danny?"

"Do I really have to stay after school? I can do the homework tonight."

"Sorry, hon, you know the rules."

"This is bullshit!"

Mrs. Ross gaped at him. "Do you want to stay after school every day this week?"

Danny produced his phone aimed it at the teacher until she disappeared into it. He leered at the screen with a chuckle.

"No, Mrs. Ross, I'm _**not**_ staying after school—tomorrow or ever."

xxxxx

At home, Danny again locked himself in his room and played with his phone. He beat up on his bullies while an unmolested Mrs. Ross looked on in fright.

"Danny, please! You need to to stop. You're going to kill these boys!"

"No problem, Mrs. Ross. If they die, I'll just reboot 'em."

"For god's sake, this isn't like you! You were always a good kid."

"And what did it get me? Beaten up and spit on, that's what."

"OK, but what you're doing now makes you no better than they are!"

From behind Danny, a baritone voice said, "She's right, you know."

Gasping, Danny whirled around to find himself face to face with the man in the gray suit who had put the app on his phone.

Danny exclaimed, "How did you get in here? Didn't my parents see you?"

The man ignored his questions. "I've been giving kids like you this kind of power for decades—not always as a phone app, of course. The technology has changed, but the people never do. I keep hoping at least one of you will learn."

"Learn what?"

"To be merciful and compassionate."

"What, to these guys? They've made my life a living hell!"

"What about your teacher?"

Danny furrowed his brows. "What about her?"

"Has _**she**_ made your life a living hell? All Mrs. Ross wanted to do was keep you after school, as she'd do with _**any**_ student who doesn't do his homework. And for that, you trapped her in your phone?"

"Well…. I haven't used the icons on her."

"So you think it's the level of the abuse that matters, not the fact that you're engaging in it?" The man shook his head sadly. "Give me your phone."

"No!" Danny clutched it to his chest.

"I said, give me your phone." He stared intently at Danny, who felt his arm involuntarily extend in the man's direction. He handed over the phone as if under hypnosis.

"What are you going to do?" Danny asked.

"Delete the app. When I do, the boys and Mrs. Ross will reappear. And no one will remember what happened—except you."

"So I go back to getting bullied? Well, that's just great!"

The man said nothing.

xxxxx

The next morning, Danny walked to the bus stop with dread. Hunter, Trevor and Tobin were all there; but to Danny's surprise, they did not react to his arrival. The trio did not so much as look in Danny's direction.

In English class, he asked Mrs. Ross, "So, you want me to stay after school today?"

She looked surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I didn't do my homework yesterday."

"What are you talking about? Of course you did your homework. You always do."

And so it went for the rest of the semester. Hunter, Trevor and Tobin acted as if they didn't know Danny at all, or even that he existed. After a time, Danny began to feel guilty about what he had done to them (and to Mrs. Ross). But there was no one he could tell. Danny believed he had no choice but to keep his guilt to himself. But for how long? The rest of his life? Was that how the man in the gray suit would punish Danny for his abuse of power? If so, it was working.


End file.
